After In Between
by OughtaKnowBetter
Summary: Anybody else think that In Between ought to have been a two parter? Why is Brennan the only one to go tromping through Jesse's mind? Lots of angst and Jessewhumping and major spoilers for In Between. Okay, one last chapter. This really is the end.
1. Default Chapter

Usual Disclaimer: all theirs, nothing mine. Scenes (in italics) from "In Between" have been lifted wholesale for use here, and credit is given to those writers.

Spoilers: this is Part Two of 'In Between', which should have been a two-parter from the start. Why should Brennan be the only one to go messing with Jesse's head?

* * *

After In Between

By OughtaKnowBetter

"Hey, bro, good to see you up." Brennan punched the molecular lightly in the arm, far more lightly than was his usual. "You must be feeling better."

"Yeah." Jesse lit the room up with his smile, a smile that Brennan was grateful to see. _Almost lost that smile forever_. And if the expression was a little crooked around the edges—well, Brennan was willing to live with it. Jesse grinned. "After a week of living in pajamas, I figured it was time to move on. You ready for me to whup your ass at basketball?"

"Like you ever could," Brennan smirked, knowing that it would be at least another three days before Jesse was ready to do more than shuffle across the floor and sit down at the computer unassisted. That too was okay. Just yesterday Brennan had had to help the man stumble to the john and back to bed, and the day before was when Dr. Robinson had allowed him to be moved from the monitored clinic lab bed to his own room. Today was an improvement.

"Anytime, Brennan. Anytime. You suck at basketball." Jesse seated himself gingerly in front of the console, hand automatically going to protect the damaged muscles at his mid-section, wincing as the sutures pulled at delicate healing tissue. The computer beeped at the molecular, and Brennan could have sworn that the machine greeted Jesse with as much affection as any of the New Mutants. More, actually, if Brennan averaged Lexa into the mix. An odd woman, that one. Brennan wasn't certain what Jesse saw in her. Ice cold one minute, then pulling a rabbit out of a hat for her team mates the next. Well, to each his own…

"_And_ you suck at computers. Look at this thing," Jesse said in disgust, fingers dancing over the computer keyboard. "Hasn't anyone run the sweeps? You'd think that Sanctuary was a kiddie camp with a fourteen year old baby-sitter in charge of security."

"I did my share," Brennan defended himself.

"Right. Nobody's re-aligned the photon sensors. The motion detectors are set to recognize nothing smaller than an elephant, and the temporary cache on the mainframe is overflowing with invitations for someone to sneak a virus in. You call that protection?"

"What can I say? This place is lost without you. That'll teach you to step in front of a speeding bullet."

_

* * *

"Brennan? What happened?" _

_"You took a bullet for me, man."_

_Only seconds ago Jesse had been writhing with the pain of the bullet in his gut. Then Dr. Robinson had given him a telempathic jolt of endorphins, and Brennan could see the lines in Jesse's face smooth out with relief. And bewilderment._

_"But I was massed."_

_"Special kind of bullet."_

_"Oh." Then—"it hurts, Brennan."_

* * *

Shalimar did a double-take as she walked by. She halted, back-stepped, and poked her head into the room to look at where Jesse sat absorbed in the computer. The vid screen appeared to be all work; no online computer games hiding in a separate window, no little tag bars indicating conversations elsewhere. The vaguely green light bathed his face with an unhealthy glow but Shalimar could see the gentle red in his cheeks that indicated returning strength. She smiled. The computer games would wait until Jesse had restored the neglected defenses. That was more important to the molecular than any game invented. 

Brennan toyed with wire basket that he had twisted together out of spare electronic parts, half-lounging on the divan to one side of the room. He was engaged in attempting to spark the wires into welding themselves together, pretending that his actions had purpose. It didn't work; Shalimar instantly recognized the ploy for what it was—an excuse not to leave Jesse alone. The wire sculpture had no merit whatsoever. Keeping watch over Jesse did.

She sympathized, for she felt the same way. It had been Shalimar who had persuaded Brennan to take a break the first time that horrible night. Even after removing the bullet it had been touch and go for much too long a time, Dr. Robinson trying to suture the wound and the still fluidly-shifting tissue refusing to hold the sutures in place. It was close to four AM when Dr. Robinson finally declared that Jesse out of immediate danger, and Shalimar, who was the liveliest of them all at that hour, insisted that the others sleep as best they could. Lexa had set up six hour shifts, six hours on and twelve off, and then ruined her own plan by showing up after a mere four hours, eyes haunted and dark, to take over the vigil.

Shalimar grinned. New day, new week. It looked very natural to see Jesse hunched over the computer screen, fingers tapping away with the same type of intensity that Shalimar herself had when she went feral, and she had to remind herself not to jump on top of him with sisterly playfulness as she usually did. "Looking good, Jess."

He glanced up at her, wincing briefly as the action pulled at the stitches, then determinedly replacing the expression with a welcoming grin. "Hey, Shal."

She snuggled herself onto a stool, pulling it close enough to look at the computer over his shoulder and placing a light hand on his shoulder, careful not to drag on him. "Don't work too hard," she cautioned him. "Seriously, should you be up out of bed this soon?"

"I haven't 'worked too hard' in a week. It's time to get _back_ to work. I'm fine, Shalimar."

"No, you're not." Shalimar hugged Jesse fiercely, trying not to remember how close they'd come to losing him. "But you will be. Promise me you'll rest."

"Been there, done that, tired of doing it now. Not a chance. Look at these systems." Jesse indicated the offending computer read outs. He coughed, trying to splint the incision against the inevitable stab of pain that accompanied the movement and pretending that it never happened. "I can rest later. In fact, this _is_ resting for me."

Brennan put his wire toy down. "Listen to the lady, bro. I will carry you back to bed if you don't take it easy. You've already been up almost an hour now. That's enough for one day."

"Guys…" Jesse looked from one to the other and sighed, leaning back in his chair. Both of his team mates looked grimly ready to insist. He put up his hands in defeat. "No contest, guys. I surrender. Give me a minute to shut the computer down."

"Good," Brennan grunted, not at all pleased at winning. Jesse had given in too easily, too quickly, which was an indication of how weak he felt despite a week's worth of recuperation. _You need more, bro_. "You're seeing the doc tomorrow, right?"

"Like I have a choice?" Jesse retorted, trying to put energy into it. He coughed again, cringing when the incision pulled again at less than healed flesh.

_

* * *

"Guys, behind you!"__ Shalimar cried out, too far away to do more than shout a warning._

_Time stretched out for the feral. The dark fedora-topped figure aimed, and a bright orange fire spit out of the long-nosed pistol. A projectile hurtled toward Brennan, splitting the air with a high-pitched shriek. Jesse turned at Shalimar's scream and dashed in front of Brennan, knowing that to act as a human shield was the only way to save Brennan's life. He massed, confident that the bullet would bounce harmlessly off his diamond hard surface as so many had done so many times before._

_It was the look on Jesse's face that would haunt Shalimar's nights: the look of utter shock and disbelief. Even the pain was secondary; it was the complete impossibility of this situation that hurt. He crumbled into Brennan's strong arms, consciousness fleeing into the night._

* * *

"Here, come lie down on the divan," Shalimar urged when the shutting down process threatened to move past the ten minute mark. "Relax for a few. You can finish it up later." 

Jesse resisted. "Just a little bit more, Shal. There are only a couple more systems to check—"

"They've waited a week, they can wait another few hours." Brennan came up on Jesse's other side, grateful to be able to do something more useful than to twist wires into pseudo-geodes. He tucked his hand underneath Jesse's arm, lifting him inexorably out of the chair. "You can nap right here if you're tired of looking at the walls in your room."

"Damn right I am," Jesse grumbled. The room jumped onto a merry-go-round, but he tried not to seem obvious as he clung to Brennan's arm to keep from falling over. Taking a deep breath helped, even though it pulled at the sutures. The dizziness receded. "Ow. Watch it."

"Serves you right for getting up too soon." Brennan covered over his worry with a lecture. "Here. Lie down." He eased the molecular onto the divan that he himself had just vacated. Shalimar came up with a throw cover to toss over Jesse, mutely insisting that Jesse relax, rearranging the pillows behind him.

"I don't want to lie down," Jesse said, sounding more like a petulant child than a member of Mutant X, eyes sagging shut in spite of himself.

Shalimar chuckled, and clucked at him. "I know you don't, Jess. Just do it our way for once, okay?"

"For _once?_ Who always gets stuck behind here at Sanctuary, covering your asses with computer research? Who always—"

"Who just got shot?" Shalimar kissed him on the forehead, cutting off his complaints. The color was still in his cheeks, but the rest of his face was pale. That didn't look natural. The man really had been up for too long, and every one of Mutant X was going to see that matter rectified if they had to sit on top of him and pin him to the bed. "Go to sleep, Jess."

"I'd rather work on our security systems," Jesse said pointedly.

"I'd rather you eat something, then go back to your room and sleep for a while." Lexa stood in the door, tray in hands and a tart expression on her face. "What the hell are you doing out of bed? Trying to kill yourself? Believe me, Jesse, there are plenty of people out there who want you dead. They don't need your help."

_

* * *

The gray-bearded man on the computer screen eyed her with suspicion. "You surprise me, Ms. Pierce. It sounds as if you are losing your objectivity with regard to Mutant X." _

_"Well, what did you expect? I live with him; I work with him. He's saved my life! Of course I care about him!"_

_Shalimar heard the end, just before the gray-bearded man cut the connection. "Was that real, or just an act?"_

_"Does it matter?"_

_

* * *

Does it matter? Yeah, it mattered a whole lot. And it mattered even more that none of Mutant X suspect the real answer. __Games within games, Lexa dear; games within games.__ Where does the circle stop, and the lines begin?_ Certainly not with her. The best way to keep Mutant X guessing was to not know the answer herself. Yeah, it mattered a whole lot. And it mattered even more that none of Mutant X suspect the real answer. Certainly not with her. The best way to keep Mutant X guessing was to not know the answer herself. 

"Since when are you allowed out of bed?" she asked waspishly. "And who's the genius that aided and abetted? Brennan?"

"Not me," Brennan defended himself. "This was Jesse, all by his little lonesome."

But Jesse had caught sight of the tray that Lexa held in her hands, and the contents sitting on top of the tray. His face fell. "Tell me that's not blue gelatin wiggling up there. I've had enough of trying to eat stuff that moves faster than I do. Bring me something decent, like barbecued ribs in hot sauce."

"Oh, and I suppose you'd like a keg of beer to go with it?" Lexa pushed. "Nice dream while it lasted, Jesse. Why is it that the bright boys are always the hardest to convince to do the right thing?"

"Oh, I don't know." Shalimar snuck a sideways glance at Brennan. "Some of the bad boys aren't so bad in that department, either." She looked over the tray that Lexa settled on Jesse's lap. "Yum, applesauce. And a lovely cup of hot tea."

"Lexa," Jesse tried to complain.

"Makes you want to go see the nice Dr. Robinson tomorrow, so she'll let you have something more filling than sherbet, doesn't it?" Lexa was unmoved. She peered closer at him. "Are you feeling all right?"

"I'm fine." To prove it, Jesse successfully scooped up an escaping blob of blue gelatin before it could wiggle off of the tray.

Lexa felt his forehead and frowned. "You're hot. You've got a fever."

"No, I don't. I can prove it. Take my temperature."

"Right. Stick a thermometer into your mouth after eating cold gelatin. Try again, Jesse. Your mouth isn't where I'll be sticking that thermometer."

"That's a threat if ever I heard one," Shalimar said in an aside to Brennan, who snickered at his team mate's discomfort.

Jesse tossed them a glare, and changed the subject. "You screwed up three of the security scans, Lexa."

"I upgraded them, Jesse. There's a difference."

"You're right; being able to detect the presence of beluga whales in the water garden will be of immeasurable importance in the days to come."

"I added in the specs of cetacean DNA," Lexa shot back in defense. "Don't try to tell me that genetic research has bypassed the inter-twining of mammalian DNA with human. Shalimar over there is a prime example."

"Hey, leave me out of this."

Jesse set the spoon back down on the tray, and sighed heavily. "You're right, Lexa. I wasn't thinking." He closed his eyes briefly, then focused on Brennan and Shalimar. "You were right as well, guys. I was pushing it. Brennan, give me a hand getting back to my room? I'd hate to fall down and ruin all of Dr. Robinson' fancy stitchery." He set the tray aside, and the blue gelatin wiggled in protest.

"Sure, bro." Now it was Brennan who exchanged a glance with Shalimar and with Lexa, this time worried. Asking for help was something that the molecular wasn't likely to do often. Jesse's style was to offer the help to others while remaining ferociously independent himself, just to prove that he could. "You want me to get the wheelchair?"

"No." Jesse sighed heavily. "I should be okay. Just need to rest." He allowed Brennan to help maneuver him to his feet, taking a moment to find his balance. Brennan caught Shalimar's eye over the molecular's head and mouthed silently, _get__ the wheelchair_. Shalimar nodded, and trotted off. Jesse didn't notice that she'd left. He did notice Lexa taking hold of his other arm, propping him up on the other side. He flashed her a weak smile. "Thanks."

"You've definitely got a fever, Jesse." Lexa didn't know whether to be more annoyed or worried. "You're burning up. Why didn't you say something?"

"Lay off of him," Brennan told her. "Let's just get him to his room. Hang on, man," he said as Jesse coughed and almost doubled over. "We'll get you into bed, and pump you full of pain-killers. You'll feel a lot better in no time. Which way are you going?" he asked Lexa, surprised. "His room's this way."

"The lab bed is this way." Lexa indicated the route with her chin. "Or don't you think we ought to ask Dr. Robinson to make an emergency house call?"

_

* * *

"Hold him down." Dr. Robinson probed with gentle fingers, trying to determine the exact location of the bullet. It wasn't easy; the molecular was almost out of his mind with pain and shock. _

_"C'mon." Lexa pulled at Shalimar. "We can better help him by finding out who did this."_

_Shalimar paused to caress the head of the man who was as close to her as any brother. His eyes were already closed, no longer holding hers with a mute appeal for relief. "Be strong, Jess," she whispered, praying that he would still be alive when next she saw him. She padded off in Lexa's wake, battling a foreboding sense of dread, human intellect forcing her into the correct actions against her feral need to stand by her pack-mate._

* * *

"Where does it hurt, Jesse?" Dr. Robinson probed with gentle fingers at the incision she had created several days ago in her first attempt to excise the projectile. The ends of the wound were jagged, torn further apart in a hurried effort to get the bullet into an explosion-proof container before the detonator went off, but healing well despite the rough treatment. The skin was pink, showing signs of being nearly cured, and the sutures made little black marks against pale skin. "Here?" 

Jesse winced, forcing himself to remain calm on the clinic lab bed, surrounded by his teammates. "Only a little. Mostly my chest. It hurts to breathe," he admitted reluctantly. His words were muffled by the oxygen mask over his nose and mouth, but when he went to remove it to speak more clearly Dr. Robinson stayed his hand.

"Let's leave that where it is," she directed. "I'll be running a few more tests." She glanced over to the ECG monitor, watching the regular beeps marching along the screen, turned away—then did a double take. All three bystanders saw it. Nobody understood what she saw, but all understood the significance of her actions.

"Doc?"

"Twelve lead," she murmured, hooking up a multitude of electrodes across Jesse's chest. "Want to check out those ST depressions. And while I'm waiting…" She adjusted the ultrasound to scan his torso, the picture imaging up onto a colorful screen above his head. "Hmm."

"I hate when doctors say that," Lexa whispered to the others.

Brennan took the more direct method. "What is it, Dr. Robinson?"

"What I was afraid of." She pointed at the screen, setting the paper containing the ECG down on the table next to her. Jesse tried to lift himself to see. "Lie still, Jesse. You're shifting the view."

"Sorry." _Scared, more like it_.

"We went through this a few days ago, when you were first shot. I had hoped that it was resolved; I thought that it was. Obviously I was wrong." Robinson pointed to that part of the picture that looked strangely solid and bulky in the flowing movement of the real-time ultrasound. "The bullet, as you are all well aware, involved extraordinarily high-tech electronic gear that, teamed up with a proton coupler, was able to link with Jesse's nervous system to cause uncontrolled massing."

"But Jesse was able to control it," Brennan contradicted. "You said so yourself at the time. You linked me into his mind to remind him of that, and it worked."

"And so he did, on a conscious level. Maybe 'semi-conscious level' is better terminology, given the situation at that time." Robinson moved on. "The point is that while he was able to shrink the massed area and prevent his immediate death, not all of his organs are currently free of this massed status. Continuing sequelae include latent effects from the proton coupler which is leading to the current cardio-vascular status." She pointed to specific areas of the screen. None of her onlookers could easily identify what Dr. Robinson was indicating, and she took pity on them. "Here is the lung. This is the precipitating event that started the chain. This lobe here is massed solid. Look here: the rest of the lung is breathing in and out, providing him with oxygen and removing the carbon dioxide. This part isn't moving. It's acting like a dead weight, a scar on the rest of the organ."

"Keep going," Lexa requested. "I've heard of people living for years with only one lung. Why is this one lobe a problem? It's not even the whole lung."

"It has become a repository for infection," was Dr. Robinson' answer. "In his weakened condition, Jesse is a natural for a secondary infection to set in. This lobe of his lung in its massed state is unable to clear the normal secretions, creating ideal conditions for a pneumonia."

"So give him some antibiotics," Shalimar said, knowing that there had to be more. The doctor wouldn't have overlooked so basic a solution.

Shalimar was correct. "I've already started," Dr. Robinson replied, indicating the intravenous hanging from the ceiling, "but that's not the only problem." She didn't keep them in suspense. "The infection has caused the massing to restart, even without the proton coupler being physically present. These solidified areas that you see—here, here, and here—these are all new. If we compare them to the last set of images that I took three days ago," and she superimposed the pictures over each other, "you can see that the new areas are larger than before."

"Easy solution," Lexa declared. She put a firm hand on Jesse's shoulder. He opened his eyes to look at her. "Jesse, you need to un-mass those spots."

_

* * *

"Jesse, you need to stop the massing," Brennan found it tough to keep from shouting, terrified that his teammate was dying in front of him. _

_"I can't!" The pain of the projectile was regaining its foothold. "I don't know how!"_

_"You have to, Jesse!"_

_"I can't!" The cry was ragged. Jesse twisted, trying to escape from himself. "I can't!"_

_Dr. Robinson aimed another endorphin jolt at the molecular, and Jesse collapsed into himself, muttering.__ Brennan turned stricken eyes on the doctor. She didn't try to soothe him with false hope. "You have to go in now. Before it's too late."_

* * *

Jesse mumbled something at her, trying to keep his eyes open. 

"What?" Lexa pulled the oxygen mask slightly away from his face.

"I can't," Jesse told her, words slurring with exhaustion. "I don't know how."

"Yes, you do," Lexa insisted. "You did it before. You un-massed those areas, Jesse. You know how. You can do it again."

Dr. Robinson held the chromatic back. Lexa was ready to become frantic; Jesse _did_ know how! But the doctor stopped her. "He doesn't know on a _conscious_ level, Lexa. I've seen this sort of thing before. The level of control is so deep that it can only be accomplished by the sub-conscious."

"Then you do it." Lexa turned on the doctor. "You're the telempath. Go into his mind and convince him to do it."

The doctor's eyes were sad. "I wish I could, but he doesn't truly know me. He needs the three of you to do it. He trusts you; he needs you. He'll fight me if I try, and he'll die. He needs you. There's no one else."

"No," Jesse protested weakly. He pulled the oxygen mask off of his face, the better to make himself understood. He tried to speak clearly, pausing between phrases to catch his breath, harsh wheezing muddling the words. "You're asking them to risk their lives for me, all of them. I'll take my chances with the antibiotics."

"Jesse—"

"No, Brennan!" The molecular was adamant, trying to get his point across. He coughed, too hard and too long. "You almost died with me the first time! I can't let you do it!" He coughed again, the wheezing growing more pronounced.

Brennan caught at Jesse's hand, forcing the mask back over Jesse's nose and mouth. "You don't have a choice, Jesse. I haven't done all of this just to let you go now. None of us will."

"You have to hurry," Dr. Robinson broke in. "Look at the screen—the massed areas are growing more swiftly. Jesse, calm yourself! It's your agitation that's causing the massing to spread." Without waiting for his response, she aimed a telempathic jolt of endorphins.

It had the right effect. Jesse's head lolled back against the pillow, his eyes drooping, barely aware of what was occurring, andDr. Robinsonfollowed it up by pushing a clear liquid into his intravenous line with a syringe.She turned back to the rest of Mutant X. "There isn't much time. I've just given him some morphine to relieve the pain and to relax him, but it won't last long. You have to hurry."

"What do we do?" Shalimar asked.

"Sit down," Dr. Robinson directed, indicating the chairs along the edge of the clinic. "Brennan, you've been through this before but each time it can be different. No one knows what kind of psychic images Jesse has regarding this. Right now the most important massed area to correct is the heart." She pointed at a point on the screen where a beating heart could almost be discerned through the colors. "Here, right here. This is the most immediate area of danger, the piece that will kill him if we don't correct it immediately. This area of the heart isn't moving. The closest analogy I can give you is that Jesse is suffering a heart attack. That chest pain he told you of? That's from lack of oxygen to the heart muscle, caused by the uncontrolled massing of the left ventricle. Go into his mind and convince him to restore the ventricle to its natural state."

"What do we do?" Lexa wanted to know.

"Sit down, next to each other," Dr. Robinson directed. "Join hands; I'll send you in as a group. Now relax, this won't hurt a bit…"


	2. Heart

_**HEART**_

* * *

"It's cold!" Brennan shouted at the other two. Swirling snowflakes danced all around, and he hugged himself in a frantic and futile effort to conserve what little heat he possessed. An icy wind swirled around him, tossing the snow up and down and mostly down his neck. He pulled his entirely too thin shirt close. 

Ice covered the landscape all around, with not a living creature or even a tree to break the white monotony. Sunlight spasmed through the snow, sending sharp slivers of bright light all around—_this is why Artic travelers use sunglasses_—wishing that he'd brought his own along.

"Hey, Jesse!" he called out, half-wishing for a return to the good ol' nightmare of the lava pit. "This is _your_ concept of what's going on inside you. How about some shades? How 'bout some damn _heat_?"

"Where is he?" Lexa grumbled, "and why is it so freakin' cold? Jesse! Jesse!" she yelled. "Where are you?"

"There." Shalimar's hearing remained more acute than either of the other two. "I heard something in that direction."

"Which direction? They all look alike."

"Toward that snowdrift."

"Which snowdrift? They all look alike."

"Give it a rest, Brennan," Lexa begged, looking like a bedraggled crow in her typically dark clothing. Bare skin was turning blue, and she tried to make the fashionably short blouse cover more than was expected. It wasn't her style, but she huddled against Brennan in a desperate attempt to seek out whatever heat she could find, and was gratified to find that Shalimar was doing the same thing. "Let's just find Jesse and get out of here. Fast." She slipped and fell on the ice. Brennan grabbed and missed, and Lexa ended up on her backside, snowflakes melting on her cheeks.

Shalimar extended a hand. "C'mon, girl. Those shoes were not meant for skating. Let's get to Jesse and get him out of here."

They couldn't see him, but they could hear Jesse calling for help as they got closer. Shalimar directed them unerringly in the right direction, her feral ears able to perceive sounds quieter than any her team mates could hear.

Jesse's prison looked more like a snowdrift than a jail cell, but a few moments of brushing snow away turned it into an igloo with no entrance. Thick bricks of clear ice fashioned the walls. There were no windows, but the ice was transparent enough to see blurry movement trapped behind.

"Jesse, can you hear us?" Shalimar shouted. A distant breeze was approaching, and bringing more cold air and snow with it.

"Shalimar? Is that you?"

"We're all here, Jesse. We've come to get you," Brennan yelled. "Any way out? What's it like inside?"

"Cold."

"Yeah, but we've got the wind to contend with." Lexa kept her complaint under her breath, then raised her voice. "Jesse, phase out of there. Hurry up!"

"I can't," came the reply. "I've tried. It's not working!"

"Couldn't take the easy way," Brennan muttered, "even in his dreams. All right, everyone, stand back. Let's blast this puppy."

"Brennan, no!" Lexa grabbed his arm. "Those ice bricks—they're salt water! They conduct electricity. Jesse'll be turned into a Baked Alaska dessert!"

Brennan blanched. "Then what do we do?"

"Let's try light." Lexa rubbed her hands briskly. "Stand back." Summoning her strength, she poured a pinpoint beam of laser-sharp photons at the structure. Steam drifted away from the spot that she was working at, the icy wind turning the water back into icicles that fell to the snow-covered tundra. Light streamed from her fingertips, blinding them even more than the falling snowflakes. More and more of the beam carved a path through the falling snow as she spared nothing in her effort. Both Shalimar and Brennan edged away, driven from the chromatic by the stray heat emitted despite the cold artic air.

With a groan she stopped, the light giving out. Lexa dropped to the ground, spent, gasping for breath. Brennan grabbed her arm to ease her down.

Shalimar bounded over to inspect the chromatic's work. She stared, and even sniffed, rubbing her fingers over the spot that was rapidly icing back over. "Well," she said thoughtfully, "you dented it."

"That's all?" Lexa crawled to her feet, Brennan giving her a hand up to keep her from slipping on the icy surface. "How thick is that stuff?"

"Let's find out." Shalimar whirled, executing a perfect back kick exactly where Lexa had concentrated her efforts. The dome creaked and a few layers of ice flaked off, but the overall integrity of the structure remained intact. "Dammit." Neither of her team mates were certain if the curse was because of her failure—or because the ice was hard. "We need an ice pick."

"I don't see one around here. Do you?" Lexa was trying hard to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. "Pretty lame excuse for a mission inside Jesse's head. Don't give us the tools we need to succeed, Jesse, thank you very much. How are we supposed to get you out of here?"

Shalimar went very still. "Do you suppose that's what Jesse's thinking?"

"No." Brennan was certain. "We went through that, he and I, when the bullet was still inside him. He knows that if he dies, we die with him. It's part of what kept him going, knowing that I was there. He wouldn't allow himself to stop. Not if he could help it." He looked around. "There has to be a way in. There has to be." He hammered on the ice. "Jesse! Jesse, can you hear me? Help us. Help us help you."

A dark shadow moved inside, came closer to where Brennan stood. "Brennan?"

"Yeah, bro, it's me. All three of us are here. We'll have you out in just a few minutes."

"Good. 'Cause it's pretty cold in here." They could hear his teeth chattering.

"Good thing that this is only in his head," Brennan groused. "This is _so_ not a good place for a man with pneumonia, even if the cold is only in his mind." He hammered at the ice bricks, making as little progress as the others. "C'mon, guys. We can do it. We have to do it!"

They could hear a voice coming from a distance, recognizing it as Dr. Robinson's. _You have to hurry. His heartbeat is becoming irregular_.

Shalimar beat frantically at the ice prison. "Jesse! Help us! We're not going to let you go!"

"We've run out of time. Stand back," Brennan ordered. "I'm going to blast this thing. We'll have to take the chance that it won't electrocute him."

"No, Brennan." Lexa got to her feet. "_You_ stand back." Planting her feet firmly on the ice, she took a deep breath. Inside the icy dome the dark blur slowly sank to the cold and snowy prison floor.

'A beam of light' was insufficient to describe Lexa's effort. 'Power of a small sun' might come close; 'partial output of a nova' would also suffice. Brennan and Shalimar flinched away, covering their eyes against the both the light and the reflected glory in the snow. Ice hissed and melted, clouds of steam rising into the frigid air only to be reincarnated as snowflakes to float gently down on top of Jesse's prison.

She stopped too soon, spent. She sagged to the snow covered ground, Brennan catching her before she could completely pass out. Lexa rubbed at her eyes, dashing away tears that she'd never admit to shedding.

_Hurry.__ I'm losing him. You have to come out now, or I'll lose all of you!_

"Not a chance," Brennan said determinedly. Inside the ice they could see a blurry figure stagger to his feet, leaning on the side of the wall. They could barely make out the outline of their teammate, the molecular trying his best not to give up, to force his damaged body to phase through the frozen ice. "Stand back, everyone. I'm not letting him go without a fight." He twisted the volts between his fingers, electricity snapping and hissing, and let it fly.

The whole structure rocked in protest. Jesse cried out; they could see him spasm, then topple over to lie motionless in a blurry heap.

But the icy prison remained untouched. Brennan's electrical blast had done less than Lexa's fiery lasers.

Shalimar darted to the snow covered wall. "Jesse? Jesse?"

There was no answer from the still figure. Shalimar pounded on the wall frantically. "Jesse! Wake up! Say something!" Scant flakes of ice chipped away, but Jesse didn't move.

_His heart has stopped! I have to try the paddles!_

Inside Jesse's body jerked, as though some unseen hand had picked him up and squeezed. It happened a second time. Shalimar struck the wall over and over again, unable to do more than brush away a slender crust at a time. Brennan joined her, using his long legs to strike at the thick ice.

_Get out of there now! You can't save him! Save yourselves, before it's too late!_

It was no use. Lexa stared at the frozen water structure, knowing that Jesse was slipping away from them, unable to do anything more than watch. If they didn't leave now, all three would die with him. _Maybe I ought to get out_. Brennan and Shalimar would stay behind, but Lexa was made of sterner stuff. _Cut your losses, girl. He's gone. Leave your heart behind, along with his. You didn't need a heart anyway. It only gets in your way._

She could slip away unseen. Summoning the remainder of her strength, she activated her powers and went invisible.

Her hand went through the icy igloo wall.

Staring, literally, at nothing, she poked her fingers through the ice brick again. It slipped through as though nothing was there, and Lexa was able to touch Jesse's cold and unmoving form.

The other two couldn't see her, but that didn't matter. Lexa slipped her hands under Jesse's arms and turned them both invisible. It didn't make sense, this ability to pass through the translucent ice bricks while translucent herself, but this was Jesse's dream—no, nightmare—and Lexa wasn't about to question the inconsistencies. She hauled them both through the igloo prison walls, only to collapse visibly onto the snow outside.

The world darkened for Lexa. Even the bright twinkling of the snow stabbing at her eyes couldn't keep back the blackness that encroached upon her. She sensed more than heard Shalimar's exclamation of _"How did you do that?"_ before passing out, Jesse's still form in her arms, cold and limp.

* * *

"Blankets." 

Lexa heard that, even above the too loud sound of her teeth chattering. There were arms around her, more than two, wrapping her in warm coverings and helping her to sit up. One held a cup of something hot to her lips. She blinked, blinked again at the bright lights but these were not the brash twinkling of sun glintings off of ice. This was the harsh clinic light.

They were back.

There were still ice crystals in her veins, but they were rapidly melting under the ministrations of her teammates. Brennan settled her more comfortably on the second bio-bed, piling blankets high while Shalimar held a steaming mug of hot tea until Lexa's hands were steady enough to manage it by themselves.

But Lexa had more important things on her mind than creature comforts. "Jesse?"

"The massing of the heart has been relieved," Dr. Robinson reported, running scans over her patient. The monitors gave a comfortingly normal litany of beeps, and the oxygen hissed overJess'sface. "The rhythm has stabilized, thanks to your efforts, and he's sleeping. He's not out of danger yet, but we have a little more time to work with. You've bought us that, Lexa." The doctor came over to search the chromatic's face worriedly. "How are you feeling?"

"Cold." Lexa fought to stop her teeth from chattering again and covered up by taking another sip of hot tea.

"You nearly died."

"No, I didn't," Lexa contradicted.

"Yes, you did. That was a very courageous thing you did." Dr. Robinson turned to the other members of Mutant X. "She can't go back in. Not until she's regained her strength."

"Yes, I can," Lexa insisted. "I'm fine." She set the mug down, afraid that her shaking hands would give her away.

"Doc?"

Dr. Robinson shook her head firmly. "No. But the two of you can."

"But—"

"No buts, Lexa," Brennan told her. "Rest. You've done your share." He turned back to Dr. Robinson, Shalimar steadfast at his side. "What's next?"

Dr. Robinson had a ready answer. "His fever. Feel how hot he is? We have to get his fever down before he burns up inside and there's nothing left to save."

"I thought the antibiotics would do that."

"They will, in about twenty-four hours. Jesse doesn't have that long." Dr. Robinson fiddled with some of the dials, updating the scans. "This sleep of his isn't normal. If a fever gets too high it can literally 'cook' the brain. I need you to go into his mind and convince him to cool off. Remember, the mind controls the body. This isn't phasing, but with help, Jesse can lower his body temperature and avert this crisis."

Shalimar stroked the damp hair off of Jesse's sweat-drenched forehead. "He feels so hot." She turned back to Dr. Robinson. "I'm ready. Brennan?"

The elemental set his jaw. "Let's go get him."


	3. Fever

FEVER

"Where is he?" Brennan asked, trying not to sound disgusted as he looked around the new scenario that Jesse's fevered subconscious had drawn them into. "You know, the first time I delved into Jesse's twisted little mind he was easy to find. Not too many places to go when you're rock-climbing in a tunnel with a pit of lava below."

_

* * *

"What is this place?" Brennan wanted to know. He could see Jesse clinging to the wall, hair plastered against his face with sweat and exhaustion. There were dark circles under the molecular's eyes, testament to how close to death the man was. Brennan swallowed his dismay._

_It wasn't far to the opening above, but the stakes were high. There were handholds in plenty, but each one was slippery with humidity. One false step, one missed grasp, and a fatal fall would follow, for down below was a whirling cauldron of fiery lava._

_Jesse looked up at him, a dull resignation in his eyes and a hollowness in his voice. "It's the end."_

* * *

"Well, he's not here now." Shalimar scanned the territory. It was soothing to the feral, a forest of tall trees with leaves coming into the bloom of springtime. A meadow stretched out beyond the tree-line, flowers threatening her elemental companion with an attack of purely imaginary hay fever. A boulder here and there completed the idyllic scene. "This place looks pretty nice, not at all what I'd have thought for a man burning up with fever. I hope this is a good sign. Maybe Jesse's fever is going down by itself."

"Are you sure we're in the right place?" Brennan asked. "I mean, we could be in his right brain, and Jesse's hiding out in the left."

"Wouldn't be the first time he's given me the slip," Shalimar returned philosophically. "Stroll in the woods time, Brennan. Let's go find our missing brother." She raised her voice. "Jesse? Where are you? Jesse?" She listened hard, her eyes going feral with the effort. They may have been inside Jesse's mind, Brennan reflected, but the laws of physics still seemed to have a major effect on the perceived reality. Makes sense, he decided. Jesse was one of the most logical guys he knew. Things ought to follow a plan.

But Shalimar only shook her head. Jesse wasn't calling out to them this time. They'd have to track him down the hard way.

They split up when they came to a fork in the wooded path. Shalimar peered down one side, then the other. The two routes began by looking identical, trees edging the paths, but there the similarity ended. One path was well-traveled, with hardened footprints showing that many hikers had passed through this route. The other appeared all but abandoned, the bushes encroaching on the narrow path and blocking it up ahead, bringing to Shalimar's mind the old Robert Frost poem that Jesse was always embarrassed to admit that he'd read: _Two roads diverged in a yellow wood_… "Which way?"

"Beats me. Which way does Jesse want us to go?"

"Which way will get us to Jesse whether he wants us to or not?" Shalimar countered. "This doesn't make sense, Brennan. This whole scene is too peaceful. I mean, when we were trying to unmass his heart, he gave us a frozen wasteland. His heart was turning cold as it was dying—kind of symbolic. Even what you told us of being in his mind the first time, with the lava pit being the end of everything, that made a kind of Jesse-sense. But this? This is nice. I could spend a long time here and be very happy."

"Maybe that's the point," Brennan replied. "Maybe this is another form of Jesse giving up, trying to retreat into a happy place."

Shalimar gave him a look of exasperation. "I don't think so."

"Why not? Makes sense to me."

"Not to me." The feral took pity on the elemental. "If Jesse were going to retreat to somewhere, where would he go?"

"Huh?"

"Going into the woods is not where Jesse feels most at home. Sanctuary is; it was the first place that Jesse ever felt wanted, felt like he belonged. Sitting in front of a computer with a mega-dose of coffee is. If Jesse really was trying to create the ultimate retreat, it would have computers with continual on line access and the perfect anti-virus protection. Not to mention no pop-ups."

"You have a point," Brennan acknowledged. He indicated the fork in the road. "So which way?"

Shalimar sniffed; no help. "Beats me. Let's split up. We'll meet back here in an hour if we don't find anything."

"An hour? Won't that be too long for Jesse?"

Shalimar shrugged. "We could be going through all this in the blink of an eye or taking three hours to travel ten feet. You know time is skewed for Jesse when he's thinking about something else. Who's always late to dinner?" With a lop-sided grin, she moved off, selecting the less-traveled fork. Brennan sighed, and trotted toward the left, grateful to be assigned the more civilized route by the feral.

Whatever the man was pondering, he had taste, Shalimar found herself thinking. This was a perfect place for the feral to be even though it was only in Jesse's mind. It was as if he had designed the dream to appeal to her senses. Birds twittered in the boughs of the trees, a breeze brought a hint of small mammals crouching in the undergrowth, and the air was alive with life. She broke into a gentle jog, enjoying the sensation of hard dirt underneath her feet.

No, wait. There was something more, something that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. What was it? Shalimar strained to see, to smell, to determine what the danger was—

Smoke.

It became crystal clear. Fever. Heat. Fire.

The fire coursing through Jesse's veins, put there by the pneumonia in his lungs, was being translated into his dream as a fire in the woods. Shalimar shuddered. Of all the things to come up against, it was fire that the feral dreaded most. And Jesse knew that. It was the one thing that could turn her into a quivering ball of feral jelly and send her packing.

"Brennan!" she cried out. This would be Brennan's turn to pull Jesse's fat out of the fire—literally. He would have to do it, because it was beyond Shalimar's abilities. Shalimar could kick any four men into oblivion without thinking twice, but fire overwhelmed any sense that she had. "Brennan!"

No answer. Shalimar tried her comm. link, only to find that it wasn't functioning in Jesse's nightmare. _Wonderful, Jess.__ Don't make this easy, saving your life_.

She could go back, go to the fork and run and get Brennan. For there was no doubt in her mind that this was where Jesse was, that he was only a short distance up ahead, fighting the fire.

The crackling grew louder. She heard shouting, angry shouting, voices that didn't belong to Jesse. Then there was a cry of despair: Jesse!

That decided her. There was no time to get Brennan. It was either Shalimar, or lose Jesse all together. This might be a dream, a nightmare, but it would kill Jesse if she didn't act. She dashed ahead.

The idyllic scene turned horrid. It was something out of the dark ages: witch trials, with Jesse in a starring role as the witch being burned alive at the stake. Even as Shalimar approached she could see one hooded man toss a torch onto the wood surrounding the molecular. Another blaze shot up, flames licking at Jesse who was tied to the stout wooden pole in the center of the inferno.

"Jesse!" she screamed. Dammit, why didn't he simply phase out of the ropes and escape? _Same reason he was in this mess to begin with: his mind_. In this nightmare, phasing wasn't an option. He hung limply in the bonds, overwhelmed by the heat that symbolized the fever that was burning him up inside as well as out.

One by one the hooded figures standing around the pile of burning embers tossed more logs onto the inferno. It was almost ritualistic, first one then another reaching behind to cast another stick. Shalimar reached the first and swung him around, fist cocked to remove this cloaked assailant from adding to Jesse's misery.

It was Mason Eckhart.

Shalimar recoiled in horror. Eckhart merely leered at her, then turned back to hurl another tree branch onto the fire. Another hood fell back to reveal Dr. Harrison fondling a proton coupler, inserting it into a nest of twigs before delivering the fiendish device into the bonfire. Across the way, flames jumping into the air to obscure the view, was Colonel Gaument. The military man held a skewer in front of him, toasting marshmallows and greedily gobbling them down in between tossing coals onto the inferno and then poking at Jesse with the sharp edge of the skewer, all the while murmuring "ka-boom". Next to Gaument was Noah Kilmartin almost shame-facedly pushing a fat log into the blaze.

All had come to torture Jesse in his nightmarish last moments.

There were others, faces that Shalimar didn't know but could guess at: a ten year old girl taunting Jesse for being 'different', the doctors that his well-meaning parents had taken him to in order 'fix' what was wrong with him. All adding fuel to the fire, all contributing to the fever that would burn him up. Jesse cried out as the flames licked at his legs.

She had to get him out.

Fighting she could do. The cloaked figures went down before her onslaught, kicking and slashing, tears running down Shalimar's face. One by one she stripped away the evil people in Jesse's life, the ones who had come to his fever-racked mind to haunt him in his trek toward death.

But the flames drove her back. Every time she opened up a hole in the circle of hooded figures, a curtain of fire roared up to keep her from her little brother. It was as if the flames had a mind of their own and were deliberately trying to keep her away.

_Well, duh. This was Jesse's nightmare, Shal_.

"Jesse!" she screamed. "You have to let me in!"

The fire was driving her mad, sending her sense reeling with an inborn terror of fire. It was only an iron will that kept her dancing around the edges, trying to rescue her 'little brother' dangling from the wooden post in the center of the blaze. He lifted his head dazedly, fastened on her.

"Shalimar?"

"Jesse!" Shalimar screamed again. "Phase! Phase, and get out of there!"

"I can't," he groaned. "I don't know how."

"Yes, you do!" Shalimar insisted. The flames were growing higher, and her feral self more fearful. "Concentrate, Jesse! You can do it!"

"I can't!" Jesse's voice was ragged. "Help me, Shalimar!"

"I can't!" she wailed. The bonfire was too great. She couldn't make herself dash through the blaze, even for Jesse. She tried; she made little hopping steps toward him, only to be driven back every time a lick of fire advanced on her. "Jesse!"

"Shalimar!" It was a cry of despair. Jesse was dying.

"Brennan!" Shalimar shrieked. Where was the big man? He could get Jesse out. He didn't have the feral's fear of fire. Where was he?

Nowhere to be seen.

"Help me, Shalimar!" Jesse begged. He struggled against the ropes tying him to the post. Fire danced upon his leg.

Then the dark clouds over head parted, and a beam of sunlight drifted down toward her. Shalimar looked up, hoping for a miracle, hoping for something that would allow her to rescue Jesse. That someone would come to help her help Jesse.

"Be strong, Shalimar," whispered a voice through the clouds. "You can help him."

"I can't!" she wailed. "I can't."

"You can," the voice insisted. "He was strong for you. Remember?"

_

* * *

His eyes were as wild as Shalimar had ever seen them, in too much agony to think. He stared at her, mutely begging for her to end the pain, to put him out of his misery, to give him relief, unable to do more than moan. He clutched at her hand._

_She stroked the hair off of his forehead, terrified at the beads of sweat standing out, wringing his shirt with moisture—and blood. "Help him!" she demanded as Dr. Robinson strode up._

_The doctor did. A bolt of almost visible empathic energy struck the molecular, and he collapsed in on himself, semi-conscious, his eyes no longer taking in his surroundings._

_"Telempath?"__ It was Brennan._

_"Yes. In cases of severe trauma, the healing of the mind is as important as the healing of the body."_

_Lexa interposed her body, tugging on Shalimar's sleeve. "C'mon. Let's find out who did this to Jesse."_

_Shalimar almost objected, but she saw the sense of it. If this was done to her 'little brother' by someone who knew mutants, then it was of paramount importance to find out who—and why and how. She caressed his cheek, promising to return, unable to stand the mute pleading for release in those eyes. "Be strong, Jesse," she whispered, and had to fight not to sob, "don't die."_

_He didn't, though it was a near thing._

* * *

"Be strong for him," the disembodied voice urged. "You must, Shalimar."

"I can't!" she wailed. "I can't!"

"You can." Was that Lexa's voice? And Dr. Robinson's? The disembodied voice had a strangely dulcet tone, as though two people were talking at once.

No, not talking—thinking. Thinking at Shalimar, and helping her to control her fear. She heard an echo of what Dr. Robinson had told Brennan in the first horrible hours when Jesse had been shot, when they were searching for Jesse's attacker. 'Be strong,' Dr. Robinson had told Brennan. The elemental had refused to leave his teammate's side, refused to let him die. 'You can't let him feel your fear,' she had told him. Brennan had shared that with Shalimar later on, when they thought that Jesse was out of danger.

* * *

_"I was scared stiff," Brennan told her. His hands were still shaking. "I thought that Jesse was going to die, and it would be my fault." He sat on the lounge chair, head bowed, shoulders hunched. "I don't know I would have lived with myself if that had happened. I mean, this was Jesse! He was massed, Shalimar! That wasn't supposed to happen! Bullets aren't supposed to hurt him!"_

_Shalimar took his hands in her own, stilling the tremors. "He didn't die, and it wasn't your fault, Brennan. The whole thing had been carefully planned. Dr. Harrison knew that Jesse would instinctively act to protect you. He designed that bullet with Jesse's mutant anatomy in mind."_

_Brennan shook his head, not in denial but as recognition that he still couldn't cope with what had happened. "He took a bullet for me, Shalimar. It nearly killed him."_

_"But it didn't." As a feral, Shalimar lived in the here and now. Jesse was alive, and was going to stay that way if Shalimar had anything to say about it. "You wouldn't let him go then, and we won't let anything hurt him now."_

_"It was Dr. Robinson," Brennan told her. "She told me that I couldn't let Jesse sense my fear, that it would only make him more afraid." The shakes tried to come back. "It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do, Shal."_

* * *

"_It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do_." The words haunted the feral, but now they arrived with Lexa's and Dr. Robinson's voice. "You can't let him feel your fear. This is his nightmare, not yours. The flames are his, not yours."

And realization dawned.

_The flames are his, not yours._

_They can't hurt you unless you let them._

_I can do this_, Shalimar told herself. She closed her eyes. _I can't feel the heat, can't hear the crackle and pop as the wood burns. The embers are not hot beneath the soles of my shoes. I don't smell the charnel odor of Jesse's burning flesh. That's not Jesse, and this is not fire. It is a representation of fever._

_I can do this._

Her hands found the ropes that bound her 'little brother' to the wooden post, the knots tight and taking too long to untie. There was suddenly a knife in her hands, and she sliced through the stubborn cord, knowing when to stop before cutting through tender flesh.

"Shalimar?"

She opened her eyes to find Jesse looking at her in wonder. She let him slide limply into her arms, holding him up to keep him from collapsing onto the burning embers.

"Where are we?"

And it began to snow: a gentle cascade of flakes that hissed and spat as it put out the rest of the fire.


	4. Lung

LUNG 

"You can take the ice away," Dr. Robinson directed. "His fever is down. We don't want him getting too cold."

"Second that," Jesse echoed, his teeth chattering. His cheeks still held an unnatural redness against the pale skin and his hair was damp with sweat. Lexa smoothed the hair out of his eyes, readjusting the oxygen mask against his face and pulling the blankets up around his chin. He struggled to take a deep breath, coughing. "Shalimar? Thanks. I know how hard that was for you. I'm sorry I did that to you."

"Hush," she said, crawling to her feet. The room swayed, and she felt strong arms around her. She didn't need sight to know that it was Brennan. Only one man was that tall, and felt that good. She steadied herself, determined to open her eyes and see for herself that her little brother was still there on the bio-bed. "No more, okay? No more fevers."

"Deal," Jesse whispered, closing his eyes. "I'm tired of feeling this bad. It still hurts my chest," he complained. "I thought I was better." He coughed, cringing as the movement pulled on unhealed flesh.

"You'll feel better soon," Dr. Robinson promised, emptying the contents of a syringe into the intravenous. "Just relax, and take some deep breaths of the oxygen."

Lexa jerked her head up in alarm. The doctor didn't sound convinced of her own words, and Lexa could see the frown on the empath's face. "Doctor?"

The doctor shook her head at Lexa ever so slightly, waiting until her patient had drifted off to sleep before pulling them away. Jesse's breathing steadied, in and out, the sound rattling in the back of his throat as he struggled to pull in enough oxygen to sustain himself.

By then the other two had picked up on it.

"Well?" Brennan kept his voice down so as not to wake Jesse, but the demand was urgent. "What's wrong?"

The frown got more pronounced. "Jesse isn't responding the way he should to the antibiotics," Dr. Robinson informed them. "The last scan showed definite increases in the massed lung tissue, and the pneumonia is expanding along with it. He should be doing much better by now."

"Why isn't he?" Lexa wanted to know, anger covering the fear in her voice. "We've been helping him. We helped him clear out the massing in his heart, and his fever is gone. Why isn't he better?"

"You've bought him some time," Dr. Robinson said bluntly. "If the three of you hadn't done what you did, Jesse would be dead by now. But there's still some uncontrolled massing going on in the area that was originally affected by the bullet containing the proton coupler." She glanced over at her patient; the man was motionless, only the shallow rise and fall of his chest betraying that life still existed within. That, and the incessant hiss of the oxygen mask covering his face as well as the hushed beeping of the heart monitor above his head. "That massing will continue unless stopped. It's still affecting his lung."

"Which means one more excursion inside Jesse's warped brain," Brennan said grimly. "Let's get to it."

"I am not happy about putting you back there," Robinson warned, equally as grim. "Whether or not you chose to acknowledge it, each journey you make takes its toll on your own strength. Brennan, you were almost killed the first time when Jesse was ready to fall into the pit of lava. Lexa, you could have perished in the ice and snow and Shalimar, had you not dealt with the flames you would have died when Jesse did of brain dysfunction secondary to excessively high body temperature from his fever. Your brain, Shalimar, would have been cooked along with Jesse's. All three of you are not fit to do this final task. All four of you could die very easily if you attempt to help Jesse one more time. You all need to rest before attempting it again. This is not something to take lightly."

Brennan nodded. He knew he was wiped, and one look at Shalimar and Lexa convinced him that the doctor was right. He knew from experience how dangerous this was. "All right. One hour. Everybody rest, and we'll meet back here in an hour ready to go. Plan?"

It would have been a plan, but for one things: the monitors. One beeped, then another. Dr. Robinson looked up in alarm. "Jesse?"

"What's happening?" Shalimar bounced to her feet.

"It's Jesse! He's stopped breathing!" Robinson moved swiftly. "I'll intubate him. You three rest. If he's still alive in an hour, I'll send you in."

"No, doc." Brennan stopped her. "We go in now."

Dr. Robinson shook her head. "The massing is progressing more swiftly. It's too dangerous. You all need to regain your strength before attempting this. If he's still alive in one hour—"

Brennan set his jaw. "That man took a bullet for me."

"He's saved me more times than I can count," Shalimar added.

Lexa bit her lip, and looked away.

"Lexa?" Robinson's voice was soft.

"I'm not going with you, Jesse."

_Jesse turned, shocked. "What?"_

_"We're different, Jesse." Lexa bit her lip. "You know, when I was a kid, all I could think about was taking care of my brother. Everything I did, working for Genomex, for Adam, the Dominion, everything was to save Leo. And I screwed it up."_

_Jesse understood. "Look, when I first came here I was messed up, too. The last thing I thought I wanted was to join a bunch of freaks in a cave. But once I was in, I found something that I could never find on the outside. For the first time in my life, I fit in. You're a part of that now."_

"I'm a part of this now." Lexa lifted her chin. "Put me in."

It was clearly against her better judgment, but: "Hurry," was all Dr. Robinson said.

White water dashed by in a swiftly flowing river. Jagged rocks stuck blackly up above the frothy crests, the waves etching at the banks and dragging clumps of dirt away from the nests of tree roots on the edge. It was cold; the water was flowing high up on the mountainside.

Brennan took in all of this in an instant: the sun meager in the cool air, the water spray dancing up to mist onto his face, heavy clouds above sailing in to block whatever light was available this time of year in Jesse's mind. He pulled back; as an elemental specializing in electricity, water was his enemy. One spark, and it would flow through the liquid to electrocute anyone and everyone in its path including a certain New Mutant he saw in the mirror every day when he shaved. _Makes a guy real careful not to snap his fingers in the shower_.

A shout alerted him: Shalimar and Lexa were high up on a cliff, nearly half a mile away upstream. Lexa was jumping up and down, trying to get his attention, waving and pointing at something in the river. Shalimar was taking the short way down the cliff by leaping from scant ledge to rock hold, but even that was taking a long time. The holds were tiny, and one false move would end up in Shalimar taking an unexpected and fatal plunge to the watery rocks below. Despite the danger, she was hurrying. There was a canoe on the water's edge that they could use to get to whatever Lexa was pointing at in the middle of the white water expanse. In a flash, Lexa used her powers to produce a laser pointer, targeting what she wanted Brennan to see.

Brennan looked: in the middle of the raging torrents was a dark figure clutching at the rocks, trying to keep from being swept away. Even as Brennan watched, Jesse's hands were ripped from the sharp boulder and the current carried him another several yards, bumping and jolting him against more immense stones before he could grab onto another slender handhold.

There was no time for thought. Any moment Jesse would lose his precarious grasp and go spinning down the white river to oblivion and death. For that was what this was: just as the pneumonia was choking Jesse's lungs, so did this river threaten to pull him under and drown.

There truly was no time for thought. The water wouldn't harm the elemental as long as he refrained from using his powers. Brennan dove head first into the white water, knifing cleanly through the cold, heading for his teammate.

He surfaced, shook the wet hair out of his eyes and looked around. Good: Jesse was only a few yards away, clinging to an immense boulder, eyes closed against the white water spray. Brennan let the current carry him closer.

The elemental almost missed him. The swift water tried to drag him past, but Brennan reached out with one long arm. He couldn't grasp Jesse's rock, but he snagged a boulder not two yards downstream.

"Jesse!" he yelled. "Jesse!"

The molecular opened his eyes blearily. It took him far too long to recognize who was calling to him. "Brennan? What are you doing here?"

"Saving your life," Brennan yelled back.

"You're wasting your time," Jesse said hoarsely. "It's the end."

"Not a chance, bro. This is only water, not hot lava. You can swim, I can swim. Just let the current bring you to me. I'll get you out of this."

"I can't."

"Yes, you can," Brennan encouraged. "Don't you remember? You phased the Helix. You've beaten back Genomex's goons more than a dozen times. You can do it again, bro. This is no different."

"Brennan, just let me go…"

"Jesse, I won't let you quit! Let go of the damn rock and get your ass over here!"

Jesse crumbled into the raging currents, releasing his hold on the boulder and tumbling head over heels in the water. It wasn't clear whether he had let go or been torn away by the force of the rushing river, but Brennan wasn't about to quibble. He barely managed to snag Jesse's shirt and dragged him into a fierce bear hug.

"I've got you," he yelled. "Hang on!"

The man's body felt desperately cold in Brennan's grasp, colder than even the river water around them. Okay, now what? This bad a nightmare, this river could only end up in a waterfall to be dashed on more rocks below. There was nothing else that Brennan could imagine from Jesse's mind. Brennan clutched him closer, trying to share whatever body heat that wasn't stolen away by the river.

_Okay. Now what?_

_What_ came in the form of two women poling a canoe down the river, shoving against the boulders to keep the craft from knocking up against the rocks and being torn to pieces.

"Brennan!" Shalimar yelled, pushing the boat away from the jagged edge of a particularly large outcropping of river rock.

"Over here!" Brennan yelled back, as if they couldn't see him.

"Grab on!" Lexa hollered. "We'll bring the boat as close as we can!"

It wasn't easy. The current kept shifting not entirely in keeping with the laws of physics—"_Get it together, Kilmartin!" Lexa grumbled_—but Shalimar stuck out her pole to Brennan who grabbed onto it as if his life depended on it.

It did.

The boat banged up against one of the rocks, taking the men along, battering them both. Lexa abandoned all pretense at keeping the boat away from the boulders and concentrated on hauling Jesse's limp form into the meager protection of the canoe.

Thunderclouds rolled in. A flicker of lightning danced above their heads, and Brennan looked up in alarm. This may have been Jesse's nightmare, but the molecular was doing a good job of tapping into the elemental's worst fear: electrocution. And Brennan, as an electrical mutant, was a lightning rod for electricity.

_Parboiled Mulwray, anyone?_

A blast of thunder rumbled, the sound almost lost in the onrushing water. Another crackle of lightning. Panic-stricken, Brennan pushed off from one of the passing boulders and heaved himself into the canoe, all but toppling the unsteady craft.

"Down!" Shalimar commanded, meaning to increase the weight in the bottom of the canoe to stabilize it. Brennan gracelessly flopped onto the wet surface, mist floating over to join he and Jesse in creating a puddle in the boat. A wave crested over the bow, drenching them.

"We have to get to the shore!" Lexa shouted. "It's not safe on the water!"

That much was obvious. Another lightning strike lashed out, diverted from the elemental only by the tree branch that stretched too far out over the water. The stench of burning wood filled the air. The branch toppled into the water to be swept away by the swirling water.

"Get down!" Shalimar shoved Brennan further onto the floor of the canoe, heedless that he was already as flat as he could go. It didn't matter. Brennan's fingers were tingling with the aura of electrons dancing in the air, ready to be charged into a single devastating bolt, the electricity searching for a way to connect the natural circuit with the elemental. Thunder boomed out, and then lightning. It struck the canoe, flinging Lexa backward from her position at the bow and nearly overboard. She cried out.

Then Brennan realized what he had to do. This may have been a nightmare, a horrible figment of Jesse's imagination, but Jesse knew very well that the one thing guaranteed to put Mrs. Mulwray's little boy into a panic was the thought of electrocution. And since Jesse was obliquely trying to save his teammates by getting them out of his mind…

It all made a warped kind of sense. In the ice storm, by getting Lexa to leave the others behind, she had succeeded in rescuing Jesse. For Shalimar he had played on the feral's fear of fire. Now, for Brennan: electrocution, the very power that the elemental controlled and feared being controlled by.

It was all a matter of trust. They all trusted Jesse, but did he know that? Did the molecular trust _himself_ enough to feel himself worthy of their trust? Each member of Mutant X had their own fears, their own night terrors, but Jesse's inner doubts tended to run closer to the surface. There was always that little niggling doubt as to whether he was good enough, whether he would measure up to their expectations, the constant need to prove himself not to the others but to himself. And here it was again:

_Do you trust me to _not_ let you die?_

Yeah, bro. I do.

Slowly, balancing against the wild rocking of the canoe, Brennan stood up.

"What are you doing?" Shalimar screamed at him. "Brennan, get down!"

That was _so_ not going to happen, but Brennan couldn't spare the concentration to tell her that. He caught one quick glimpse of Jesse's wild-eyed stare, watching his every move, fear and self-doubt running rampant. Brennan braced his feet against the sides of the boat, and raised his arms.

The storm responded. Lightning struck one hand, surged through his chest, and flashed out the other side back up into the sky in a giant electrical circuit. The fury of the excited electrons lit up the sky better than anything Lexa could have put out. The world dissolved into a great white light…


	5. Finale

_FINALE_

Not quite a cave, Brennan decided. Caves didn't have plexi-glass walls that obscured vision into what was beyond. And people, even New Mutants, didn't get magically transported to caves through a beam-me-up-Scotty white light after nearly drowning in an exhilarating white water rapids sort of nightmare. Where had Jesse come up with this one? Not for the first time Brennan wished that he knew a little bit more of Jesse's past. Was this an episode from Jesse's childhood, replayed for the benefit of Mutant X? It almost looked like a giant sensory deprivation tank, from the inside. This might explain Jesse's claustrophobia, Brennan thought, as well as being a catalyst for his mutant gifts. Being stuck inside something like this would cause anyone with potential to develop the ability to phase through the walls in a heartbeat. _Great training technique.__ Did Genomex ever use it on Jesse? Look at him sitting there on the floor, shivering, eyes closed. Not good. Gotta get you out of here, bro._

The walls were opaque. Brennan couldn't see out, and neither could any of his teammates as they explored their new surroundings with sight and touch. Brennan went to one side to try to determine where they were, and Shalimar to the other. Lexa took the far end, rapping on surface, shaking her head at the way the wall swallowed up the sound. There was precious little to explore. The walls were smooth and warm, with no distinguishing features. The air was sterile, with no intervening odors to give Mutant X any hint of where Jesse's brain might have taken them. Even the light was dim, giving a general feeling of nothingness. Nothing to see, nothing to hear, nothing to feel; the absence of everything.

Lexa put it into words. "Where are we?"

"Beats me." Shalimar gave the pseudo-plastic a kick. Nothing cracked. Nothing happened. "Jesse?"

The molecular looked tired, sitting on the floor, arms wrapped around his knees. Even thinking was an effort now. "I don't know. I don't recognize this place. Never been here, not even in my dreams." He tilted his head back against the smooth wall, closing his eyes again.

But Lexa had seen something that scared her. She crossed to her team mate and knelt beside him. "Jesse?"

"What?" Weary, with a go-away wish as an undercurrent.

"Let me look at you." Lexa pushed his knees out of the way, exposing his chest. The others crowded around, and they could all see it: the area where the proton coupler had been, where the bullet had struck the man, was now spreading. No one needed expensive medical equipment to see that the massed area was growing like a cancer. It was obvious that Jesse was losing the battle. "Jesse!"

Jesse winced. "I know. Don't remind me."

"But you have to unmass those areas! What do you think we're trying to do here?" Lexa found it hard to keep from screaming at the man. She compromised by grabbing his shoulder so hard that he tried to pull away.

Brennan intervened; Lexa was ready to lose it altogether. "Work with us, man. Remember how we did this before. You and me, in the lava pit. You didn't give up then, and we're not going to let you give up now."

But even as he spoke, a door opened in one end of the cavernous womb. Light spilled out, a glorious light that bathed all of the New Mutants in a warmly welcoming glow. Brennan shielded his eyes; the light was too bright to see anything past, but what lay beyond was clearly a better place than where they currently were.

They were all drawn to it, to the escape from the horror that Jesse's mind had become. The light promised hope and happiness, comfort and contentment. It was entirely natural that they lifted Jesse to his feet, steadying him between them, guiding him toward the promise of bright recovery. As a group they found their steps bringing them closer and closer, all four of them.

"Brennan! Shalimar! Lexa!" Dr. Robinson's voice snapped sharply from the other end of the pseudo-cave, the dark side. They paused; Lexa beamed a hand light to show another door that had mysteriously appeared there as well, a shadowy companion to the first. They could barely see the outline of the doctor beyond that clear door, yet it was clear that Dr. Robinson was frantic. She beat a desperate staccato to get their attention. "Brennan! Shalimar! Lexa! You have to come out immediately! Hurry!"

Brennan came to himself, and his blood ran cold. He knew what was happening. It had almost happened once before. He grabbed Shalimar and Lexa by the arms, stopping their forward momentum. "Guys! We have to pull Jesse back!"

"Huh?" It was like talking to the pair on drugs. "Why? That's where we want to go." Shalimar pointed at the door with the light. "That's the nice place. It feels right, Brennan. It's a good place. We need to take Jesse there. We should all go there."

"Shalimar, no! Jesse's dying! Dr. Robinson is telling us that if we don't get out, then we'll die along with him! We can't go there! We have to go back to where Dr. Robinson is!"

Shalimar shook herself, coming around. "Brennan?" Realization finally dawned. Her eyes widened, and she reacted. "Lexa! Snap out of it, girl!" She slapped the chromatic, slapped her again until sense returned.

If Lexa had tears in her eyes, then she refused to let the others know it, dashing them away with a harsh flick of her wrist. She swallowed hard, realizing what was happening far faster than any of the rest once she had come to herself. "Is that what I think it is?"

"Yes." Brennan grabbed hold of Jesse. The molecular was continuing to walk slowly toward the light unassisted, a sense of wonder and joy on his face. "Jesse, come back."

But when Jesse turned to face him, to face all of Mutant X, there was no sorrow on his face and the look of exhaustion had vanished. "Brennan." He shifted his gaze to the others. "Shalimar. Lexa." He smiled. "It's okay. It's okay to leave me here. I'm ready."

"Well, I'm not," Brennan retorted. "Jesse, do you know what that is? What it represents?"

"Yes." Jesse nodded. He gestured toward the light. "Listen, all of you. Thanks for trying, but it's time for me to leave you. Please go to Dr. Robinson. Thank her for me as well, will you?"

"Jesse, you can't!" Shalimar pleaded. "Jesse, we need you! You can't go like this!"

"Jesse, we've been here before. Don't give up, man!" Brennan pleaded. "Jesse, I haven't worked this hard just to have you wuss out on me. Get back over here!" He cast about in desperation. "We've got more basketball to play. Don't give up!"

Jesse smiled sadly. "It's not about giving up, Brennan, it's about going to the right place." He gestured to the light. "That's where I belong now. You guys don't get to go there yet. Someday you will, but not yet. I'll be waiting for you." He hugged Shalimar, gently wiping away the tears that sprang to his big sister's eyes.. "You'll do just fine without me, Shal. You did before you met me, and you will again. You're survivors, Shal, you and Brennan. Even you, Lexa. Of all of us, you're the one who needed me the least. Good-bye, Lexa." He held out his hand in farewell.

"You're wrong there, Jesse." Lexa was the most surprised by the angry words that came out of her mouth, more surprised than any of the others. She slapped his hand away. "Damn you, did you think that I wanted to feel this way about you? You, with those puppy dog eyes that get hurt whenever I tell you to be quit being so naïve and believing in the people? The way I push you around just to take advantage of your good nature, just because I can? Maybe you can forgive what I've done to you, Jesse, but I can't forgive _you_! I won't ever forgive you leaving!"

It was still a sad smile, with a small shrug. "I can't help you there, Lexa. I can only hope that someday you'll be able to forgive yourself for all the times when everything you had wasn't enough to make things come out right." Jesse glanced into the light, seeing something that no one else could see. His face lit up. "Leo forgives you, Lexa. And so do I." He took a step backward, a step closer to the light filled exit. "Guys, you have to hurry. I don't know how much longer I can stay here for you. Please, go to Dr. Robinson. Go home, so that I can."

"Good-bye, Jesse." Shalimar could barely speak through the tears.

"I won't forget you, bro."

"I will," Lexa snarled. This time the tears went unheeded. "Dammit, Jesse, I'll forget you, and forget you, and keep on forgetting until there's nothing left!" She stormed to the door where Dr. Robinson waited impatiently and yanked.

Nothing. The door wouldn't open. Lexa turned around, fear written plainly on her face. "Jesse?"

Jesse was still being drawn back toward the light. "Hurry, Lexa. Hurry, Brennan and Shalimar."

"Jesse, the door won't open!"

"What do you mean?" Brennan crossed swiftly to the dark end of the cave. He hauled on the door. It wouldn't budge. He cast a glance back at Jesse; the molecular was a bare three paces from the light-filled exit. There wasn't much time. "Stand back," he ordered. He twisted his hands together, creating a blast of electricity and hurling it at the exit.

Nothing.

Shalimar turned back to Jesse. "Jesse, the door won't open!"

"Jesse, you can't leave!" Brennan added hastily. "Remember what Dr. Robinson said? If you die while we're in here, we all die!"

Jesse paused. "I don't want you to die." Thoughtfully, methodically. Rational consideration.

"Then help us! Phase us out of here!"

Jesse looked back into the light. It was there, beckoning, extending a little tendril to coax him in. He sighed.

Brennan seized the opportunity. "You can't let us die in here, Jesse. It's all up to you now."

_

* * *

"I can't hold on any longer." Jesse leaned his head against the hot rock face. A fiery tongue of lava lapped upward, licking hungrily at his heels._

_"Jesse, fight it!"_

_But Jesse lost his precarious hand hold. With a despairing cry, he slipped down the slippery rock face. "Let me go!"_

_Brennan grabbed his wrist. His arm almost ripped loose from its socket, but he held on desperately. "No! Not a chance! If you die, I die!"_

_He could see the determination creep back ontoJesse's face. "I don't want you to die."_

_His friend and teammate--his brother--took a fresh hold of the slippery rock face, and heaved himself back, one inch at a time._

* * *

_I don't want you to die_.

Shalimar grabbed Jesse's arm as he approached the dark side of the cave, Brennan adding his strength. The molecular seemed to grow more weary and ill as he moved toward them, away from the light, the pair all but holding him up on his feet when he arrived at the dark door that refused to open. The amorphous mass on Jesse's chest pulsed and throbbed, trying to keep the molecular from responding to his friends, trying to turn the New Mutant's power against him. Shalimar wedged herself under Jesse's arm, Brennan taking the other shoulder, walking Jesse forward until they had him at the dark door where Lexa waited. Jesse leaned against Brennan, his head drooping against the elemental's broad chest.

"C'mon, Jesse, you can do it," Shalimar urged.

"Stay with us, man," Brennan added. "We need you. We've always needed you."

"And I've always needed you." It was tough for Jesse to admit, but it was the truth. "Guys, I don't know if I can do this. I'm so tired."

"You can do it." Lexa's eyes shone with pleading. "You've never let us down, Jesse." She took a deep breath. "You've never let _me_ down. Let us help you now." Lexa helped Jesse lift up his hands to the door, placing them against the blackened surface. "We're all here. We're all here with you to help."

But it was Jesse who exhaled, and phased.

* * *

"On the count of three, cough." Dr. Robinson had her hand securing the tube that had been forced down Jesse's throat, helping him to breath. "One, two, three." Jesse coughed, and the tube slipped out, guided by the doctor's hand. Shalimar immediately pushed an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth, heedless of the continued coughing. Jesse wheezed, drawing in precious air, closing his eyes with exhaustion.

Dr. Robinson surveyed the monitors. "Looks good, Jesse. No massing, everything is clear. We'll keep a close watch on you for the next several days. " She noticed him moving his lips. "No, don't try to talk. Nothing will come out fora few hours and you'll have a sore throat for several days after that. Just try to relax for a while longer. Let us do the work."

Jesse nodded, licking his dry lips. He winced. Lexa caressed Jesse's forehead, gently pushing the sweat-drenched hair back. Jesse's eyes levered themselves open at her touch, but it took far too long for her visage to become focused. He blinked. More reality crashed in, and he tried to tell her something. The mask got in the way, and Lexa had to guess. "Hurting, Jess?"

A bare nod. It was all the man could manage. Brennan placed a reassuring hand on Jesse's shoulder. "Dr. Robinson just gave you something for the pain. You should be feeling better any minute."

A ghost of a smile, and his eyes drifted shut again under the influence of the narcotics. Brennan bit his lip. This had been a closer call than any before and Brennan wouldn't feel right until he was certain that Jesse would recover. Dr. Robinson said that he would, but—_isn't that what she said the last time?_ Yet this time Brennan couldn't help the sneaking hope that the worst was over. _No more, bro. I don't think I can go through this again_.

Lexa had seen Jesse on the clinic bio-bed more than once, unconscious more than once, and she'd never yet gotten used to the sight of Jesse being wired for sound. Tubes in his nose, down his throat, needles in his arms; the man was still tied down with medical equipment and Dr. Robinson had done the tying. It had to have hurt the doctor, this deliberate inflicting of pain even to cure, and for an empath it would be torture. How could Dr. Robinson stand it? She looked subdued, Lexa thought. No, not subdued—haunted. Lexa herself hadn't been able to stop the tears as she held Jesse down for the doctor, grateful that the others couldn't see her own pain over this man that she cared about so deeply._ 'Cared about'? Don't you mean 'love', Lexa? _

_No. We're not going to go there. Not yet. Maybe not ever. That way lies trouble_.

Shalimar obviously had the same thought about the doctor, for she said, "What's wrong? Isn't getting him off these machines a good thing?"

Dr. Robinson managed a weak smile. "A very good thing. He's on the road to health. He won't be himself for a few weeks, but he should recover fully in time."

"Then what's wrong?" Brennan asked. "Doc?" he pushed when the empath was slow to answer. "You said he's going to be okay, right? Full recovery? Eventually?"

Dr. Robinson nodded. "Eventually," she echoed. She sighed, coming to a decision, coming to her confession. "I broke my oath."

"What oath?" Lexa refused to give up possession of Jesse's hand. Later, when he was awake, she would deny ever being here, but for now…

"My Hippocratic oath. _First, do no harm_," Dr. Robinson quoted. "I broke it. Irrevocably, and forever."

Brennan came around the bio-bed, also putting a hand on Jesse's shoulder, needing the tactile comfort of knowing the man was alive. "I don't get it, doc. We're all here, all of us, alive and kicking. Mostly kicking," he amended with an apologetic glance toward the bio-bed. "You didn't do any harm that I can see."

"Oh, but I did." Dr. Robinson couldn't meet their eyes. "You remember, in that final place, where Jesse wanted to move on? To die?"

"I remember." _Like any of them would ever forget_ _in this lifetime_.

"He told you to leave."

"That's right," Lexa said evenly. "You told us the same thing. You tried to get us out before it was too late."

Dr. Robinson bit her lip. "Not exactly."

"What do you mean, not exactly?"

"I held the escape door closed," Dr. Robinson blurted out. "I kept it closed, and almost killed all of you, trying topersuade Jesse to come back with you. I took a gamble that he wouldn't let you die: threefor one. I risked three lives that I had no right to risk in the hope of saving just one. I should have pulled you all out. I almost killed you!"

There was an uncomfortable moment of silence while the three members of Mutant X digested what the doctor had just told them. Then, to everyone's astonishment—including her own—Lexa was the first to break the silence.

"It was worth the risk."


	6. Epilogue

Okay, one last chapter for an epilog, since Aniki19 and KatsKnit00 asked so nicely (I'm a sucker for fan requests). This one's for all the Jesse hurt/comfort junkies out there. Happy Holidays!

* * *

Silence. 

Blessed silence.

Jesse hadn't realized how much he prized quiet until it had been taken from him and then given back. All the monitors that beeped and whirred, all the machines that hissed while feeding fluids and medicines into his arms. The tubes that brought fresh oxygen to his nose and whistling to his ears, keeping him awake until he couldn't take it anymore. Minutes morphed into hours into days, and he lost track of how long he lay there in the bio-bed under bright clinic lights.

He had begged Dr. Robinson to let him out, and apparently it had worked. Yes, it had, he realized, remembering as if in another of those damn dreams how Brennan had helped him crawl into the damn wheelchair when Jesse could barely hold his head up, and how Lexa had pushed the damn chair to his room, skirting away from the damn computer console that he reached for en route. Even that short excursion had exhausted him; he was grateful to be lifted into his own soft bed and had fallen asleep before Shalimar could even arrange the covers over him. Was that one a dream or reality? Must have been reality, for right now he was waking up in his own bed. No beeps. No tubes.

How long had it been? Jesse remembered Lexa bringing him something cool to eat, something jiggly and blue, soothing to his throat still sore from the garden hoses stuffed down to help him breathe—wait, was that while he was still in the clinic? Or was it here in his own room? Jesse couldn't tell. It all ran together. He did remember waking up in this bed with Shalimar's hand firmly grasping his. And there was another time when Brennan had the lamp set to low so that he could read a magazine while Jesse slept. Jesse frowned; how long was it going to take him to recuperate from that damn bullet? Hadn't it been long enough yet? Obviously not.

He satisfied himself by simply listening to the sounds of his own bedroom. There was the almost silent ticking of the clock on the bed stand, the numbers turned away so that he couldn't see red light smoldering or even tell the time. There was the omni-present hum of his own personal console networked into the rest of Sanctuary. There was a long term program that he had been running that should have finished by now. He wondered grimly what had happened to it. He'd set it up to run overnight while he and the others went to the bar… Jesse shied away from the memory. The others wouldn't have known what to do with his program. Brennan probably would have just turned it off and crashed the file. Jesse sighed, hoping that Lexa had been the one to find it. The data might still be in existence.

There were more sounds, sounds that were familiar to Sanctuary: the sound of the generator humming, providing the power that kept the place warm and the air circulating, and there was the pinging as the metal walls contracted and expanded, the gentle trickling of the fountainin thewater garden. The mainframe added its share of little beeps.

But no sounds of breathing. Jesse found that he missed it, realized that there had been someone with him ever since he'd been shot, let alone released from the clinic bio-bed. There, teasing at the edges of narcotic-fuzzed memory, was the scene of an argument.

_

* * *

"No, Brennan, he's not ready. He could stop breathing again." It was Dr. Robinson. "He needs to stay monitored." _

_"Yeah, but doc, he's going crazy! Listen to him. Jesse's out of his mind, talking to people who aren't even here! He's talking to Adam!"_

_"That's not uncommon, Brennan. It's called ICU madness. His mind is being affected by all the drugs I've given him for the pain, and by being here in the clinic. He can't tell whether it's morning or night, and it's confusing him. He'll come out of it once he leaves the clinic."_

_"All the more reason to get him out of here," Brennan returned triumphantly._

_"No," Dr. Robinson said firmly. "He'll snap out of it eventually. But he stopped breathing once. What if it should happen again?"_

_"I'll watch him," Shalimar put in._

_"And me."_

_"And me."_

_

* * *

Were they all present in the clinic, talking about him? Talking over him like he wasn't even there? _

Buddy, you _weren't_ there. You were visiting King Henry the Eighth at the Funny Farm.

_Yeah, well, I'm back. __Me.__ Jesse Kilmartin.__ Impervious to rocks, hard places—everything but speeding bullets equipped with proton couplers_. Jesse couldn't help himself; a cold shiver of fear rippled up and down his aching spine.

Which reminded him—everything ached. It wasn't the same truly mind-wrenching pain that took away the power of thought and breath at the same time. That seemed to have faded away like the rock hard mass over where the bullet had entered. The massing had gone, hadn't it? Jesse pulled the covers away to verify what his senses were telling him. Yes, there was no sign of any leftover proton coupler activity. He could be grateful for that, at least.

But he still ached all over, suggesting that he'd spent way too much time flat on his back. And how come there was no one here in his room? He could just barely see the afghan blanket tossed carelessly across the chair in the corner, the light too dim to tell the colors. If he had to guess, he'd say that it belonged to Shalimar, and that the feral had stepped out for a glass of water or a fresh magazine. It was hard for her to sit still, he knew. Her feral nature kept her constantly moving. An image came to mind: a cat's tail, the tip tilting this way and that, never at rest. Soon she would trot back in and settle herself into the chair in the corner again.

What was keeping Shalimar? He could use a glass of water himself. His throat felt dry and scratchy, and he would just bet that Brennan had turned down the humidifier on the climate control while Jesse wasn't watching. The man hated moisture in every form except a shower, Jesse grumbled to himself. Comes from having an affinity for electricity. Didn't see Lexa behaving that way.

At the thought of the chromatic, Jesse grinned to himself. Knowing Lexa, he'd just bet that she didn't think that he'd remember her sitting by his bed, clutching his hand as though he were ready to run away. Couldn't remember if it was in the clinic or here in his room, but that didn't matter. The woman rarely let her emotional guard down, and that was one of those rare times. He'd cherish the memory, waiting until the right moment to remind her of it.

All right, this was taking too long. Maybe Shalimar wasn't coming back to sit with him. After all, he was doing a lot better now. Didn't need a baby-sitter._ Not gonna stop breathing, are we, Jess? Finished with that part of the recuperation._ He couldn't quite control the shudder. But not having anyone camped out in his bedroom had to be a good sign.

Didn't mean that he stopped being thirsty. And as he recalled from before, the computer desperately needed tending. There were security scans to be run, virus protections to be checked, and a certain forgotten program to look at and see if Brennan had indeed managed to destroy a week's worth of hard work. Added bonus: sitting up would start the process of getting rid of the I've-been-in-bed-too-long creakiness. Decision made: time to get up. It might be three in the morning, but he'd find that out once he was sitting in front of a LCD, bathing in the rays, looking at the time in the bottom right corner of the screen. For all he knew it could be nine AM with coffee brewing. He tossed the covers back and swung his legs over the side.

_Ow_

Hurt like hell to sit up, but he managed it, not even letting the whimper escape.

_There. That wasn't so bad, was it, Kilmartin?_

Yes, it was. And I feel dizzy.

_Just sit there for a moment. It'll pass._

I really am going crazy. I'm talking to myself.

_Sure, but you feel better now, don't you? And as long as you don't say anything out loud, nobody will know that you don't have all your eggs in one basket._

Jesse did feel better. The room stopped tilting, and the nauseous sensation that sat two inches above his navel subsided. And, more importantly, his back stopped aching, proving that he was right about wanting to get up. Time to press forward. He could access the Sanctuary mainframe from his computer in his room, but he doubted that he'd be able to run all the scans that he needed to from this workstation. For that he'd need one of the main consoles. That too was okay. The kitchen was a short distance further, and he could stop first for a glass of water, then settle in for some heavy duty computing. By the time he was finished, maybe the rest of him would have stopped aching. _So stop malingering and get moving, Kilmartin_.

_Ow_

Remember that truly mind-wrenching pain that took away the power of thought and breath at the same time? It was back, stabbing at his gut where the tissue hadn't yet healed. Jesse doubled over, clutching at the back of a chair to keep from going down to his knees.

_Breathe. In and out, now again. Breathe. That's it, pain going away now. Another breath, you can do it. You've been breathing for several years now, you're just out of practice. Try again, one more breath. And another._

Jesse straightened up gingerly, holding the other arm tightly across his midsection. Couldn't say why, but it seemed to help. He didn't make it all the way upright, but close enough for government work. He chanced letting go of the chair back and took a step.

Didn't fall down. Good. Another step. And another. Hey, it works! He could see the lounge where the computer console sat, begging him to come play, and the kitchen located not far beyond. He leaned against the wall, trying not to fall down, trying to catch his breath. When had he gotten so out of shape? He already felt as though he'd gone three rounds with the late and unlamented Gabriel Ashlocke, and he hadn't even gotten ten feet out of his room. The wall felt cool, refreshing against his hot face.

Thirsty. Still thirsty. The kitchen now looked as though it were sixteen miles away instead of sixteen steps. Somehow he'd ended up on a damn merry-go-round, and the room was spinning. The edges of his vision were going dark, which didn't make sense because he could see a light up ahead. He thought it was in the kitchen…

_

* * *

A bright white light shone out of the door way, beckoning him in. There were people through there, not so much faces as souls, smiling and inviting him to come. Emma was there, with a radiance more glorious than he had ever known her to possess. Leo, too, no longer angry but more at peace with himself. He gestured, and Jesse understood: Lexa had tried to save Leo, and her brother appreciated it more thoroughly than she could imagine. He turned back to Lexa and told her so. And that it was time for Jesse to leave. _

* * *

"Jesse, what the hell are you doing up out of bed?" It was Shalimar, strong hands under his arms, holding him up, preventing him from slipping to the floor, the anger in her voice more from guilt over taking a break than because of his actions. She cast swiftly around; the divan in the lounge was closer than Jesse's bed at this point, and the man was going down whether she was there or not. She wrestled him to the divan, managing to keep Jesse on staggering feet until he bumped up against the divan, at which point his legs gave out altogether and he sprawled helplessly onto the cushioned surface. Shalimar straightened him out, lifting his legs up onto the furniture, making certain that his head was down—and that her little brother was breathing. "That'll teach me to leave you alone for two seconds," she scolded. "Where were you going, Mr. I-don't-need-any-help-as-I-fall-flat-on-my-face?" 

"Thirsty," Jesse croaked, trembling with exhaustion.

"Then why didn't you say so? Don't move; I'll be right back." Shalimar pushed Jesse flat, keeping her hand on his chest just long enough to ensure that he wasn't going anywhere, and was back within moments. "Here. Wait a minute, your hands are shaking. Let me help you." She propped him up against some pillows, steadying the cup in his hands and helping him to raise it to his lips. Jesse greedily gulped it down, barely able to pause for breath.

Then it was gone. Shalimar helped him to lie back down, noting with dismay the lines in his face. "You're hurting. I'll get some more of your pain medicine."

"No." Jesse caught her hand. "No more drugs. I can't stand what they do to my head. Please, Shal," he begged.

Shalimar considered. She too hated the way narcotics made her feel. "All right. But as soon as you're able to walk, it's back to bed where you belong. Deal?"

"Deal," Jesse whispered, closing his eyes in relief. Then—"computer?"

"Not a chance, Kilmartin." Shalimar kissed the top of his head. "Not the way you look."

"I hurt all over. The computer helps me to forget," Jesse said pointedly, eyes still shut, hoping that he didn't appear as weak as he felt. Then he opened his eyes again, looking around the room. "What time is it?"

"Two AM, Jess."

"Oh." And, more worriedly, "what day?"

"Thursday." At Jesse's crestfallen look, she went on. "You weren't breathing for two days, Jesse. Dr. Robinson had you hooked up to machines for that long, until the pneumonia had cleared out enough so that you could breathe on your own. You were drowning in pneumonia. It was pretty scary."

"Yeah." _A momentary flash of Brennan crossed Jesse's mind, the elemental hauling him out of the raging white rapids, diving in without a thought to his own safety. Brennan, standing up to the electrical storm of Jesse's thoughts, taking whatever Jesse could throw at him._

_He knew I couldn't kill him. How? I didn't know myself that I wouldn't let him down. He knows me better than I know myself._

"We all got inside your head, Jesse," Shalimar said gently, taking his hand, and Jesse realized that he'd spoken aloud. _Flash of Shalimar, striding through the flames as though they weren't there._ "You saw the horrific parts. We saw the part of you that we love. It was okay."

It took a moment for Jesse to digest that. Then: "I saw Emma, Shal. She was there, too. At the end."

Shalimar bit her lip. "Was she happy?"

"Yeah. And Leo. He was at peace, Shal. You think Lexa knows that?"

"Knows what?" A shadow fell across the door, faded in the dim lights of nighttime Sanctuary routines. Lexa stifled a yawn. "What am I supposed to know?"

Shalimar craned around to look. "What are you doing up, girl? Don't you know that it's two in the morning?"

"Yes, I know it's two in the morning. I heard voices," Lexa lied. "You woke me up."

Shalimar allowed one corner of her mouth to creep upward. Lexa, dressed, make-up in place, just woke up when she heard Jesse and Shalimar talking quietly? _I don't think so. I think you were having trouble sleeping, girl, worrying over our little fair-haired boy here_._ Tough. Tonight it's my turn to watch over him._

Jesse was beyond noticing. "Sorry," he muttered. "I couldn't sleep."

"Take drugs," Lexa advised dryly. "I hear they knock you right out." She took a closer look, saw the lines drawing down the man's face. "I'll get them, and I'm not taking no for an answer. Look at him, Shal. This look like a man who should be up out of bed? What were you thinking?"

"Lay off of her, Lexa." Even lying on the divan seemed to be draining Jesse of strength. Watching the two women in his life go after each other was more than he could bear. "This wasn't her fault. I couldn't stand being in bed any longer. Everything aches," he added, trying to keep the whine out of his voice.

They could both see something melt inside Lexa, although not a muscle did she move in her face. "Idiot. C'mon, sit up."

"Huh?"

"Sit up," Lexa said impatiently. She slipped an arm underneath Jesse's shoulders, raising him into an upright position, ignoring the sharp hiss as the movement pulled on healing flesh. "Here, put your arms around Shalimar. Lean against her shoulder. She'll hold you up. I used to do this for Leo, back when we were at Genomex. He used to come back to our room, sore and aching, after some of his sessions." Lexa began to massage the tight muscles in Jesse's back, working loose the knots put there by too many days of inactivity.

It felt good. The scent of Shalimar's shampoo tickled his nose, but the sheer relief of the agony that Lexa was pummeling away took all his attention. He let his head rest on the feral's shoulder, allowing Lexa to attack the ache in his neck as well.

"Feel better?"

"Mm. Don't stop."

"That's what Leo used to say." But Lexa did pause. "What was that you said about Leo?"

"Mm."

"I'm not kidding, Jesse."

"Ow. Ah, that's better."

"What about Leo?"

Jesse sighed. Shalimar adjusted her hold on him, not allowing him to drop bonelessly away. "I saw him."

"When?"

"You know. When you were in my mind."

"Leo hates—_hated_—the cold. He wasn't there."

_Flash of Lexa going invisibly through his igloo prison, dragging him out to safety. Flash of pain as Dr. Robinson used the paddles to restart his heart_. Jesse shivered. "Not then. Later."

"The cave thing? Leo wasn't there either."

Lexa couldn't see the frown from behind. "He was in the light, Lexa."

"Then it was a good thing that you didn't join him, Jesse. You'd've both been waiting a good long time to see me. I produce light, I don't go into it."

"He was there, Lexa," Jesse said stubbornly. It was tough to actually think and talk while Lexa was removing the killer cramps from his back. She rotated a shoulder, ignoring the groan of relief as a muscle released. "You couldn't see him, but he was there. And he was happy. For the first time in years, your brother was at peace with himself and the rest of the world."

The kneading fingers paused. Lexa swallowed hard. "You mean it? Jess, don't play me with this."

"I mean it, Lexa. He's in a better place." Quietly.

Jesse couldn't see it with his back to her, but Shalimar saw Lexa wipe an errant tear away. He did feel the loss of her healing fingers; he tried to turn around to look.

Acid fire dripped into the not yet healed bullet wound. He crumbled, all Lexa's good work undone, his head spinning, fighting to keep his guts from spilling. Four hands grabbed him and gently eased him back flat, soothing him until the pain passed.

"Idiot," he heard Lexa say again. She said something else, but Jesse couldn't catch it. His concentration was elsewhere.

_Okay, breathe. Start over again. Little set back. Not to worry. Damn, gonna cough again_.

The coughing went on way too long for his comfort, the movement pulling at the sutures and stabbing into tender tissue. This time it was Lexa who held the water to his lips to soothe away the tickle in his throat while Shalimar supported his head. "Damn. Damn."

"It's all right, Jess," Shalimar told him, her own brown eyes as serious as he'd ever seen them. "You'll get through this."

"This a private party, or can anyone join?" Brennan appeared in the doorway, chest bare and soft flannel covering long legs. He yawned widely, running a hand through tousled dark hair. "Jess, what're you doing up, man?"

"If I hear that one more time—"

"Hey, no, bro, you got it all wrong. I'm impressed you made it this far, all the way to the lounge. I'd have thought that you'd fall on your keister in two steps." He grinned widely. "Bet'cha can't make it back."

Jesse suppressed a cough, hand automatically going to splint the wound. His competitive spirit flared even through the exhaustion. "Bet'cha I can."

"Yeah? Then let's make it interesting. You hit the floor with your nose, you owe me a tune-up on the Miata. Deal?"

"What do I get, Brennan, when I rub your face in it?"

Brennan thought for a moment. A smile spread across his face. "I'll spot you twenty points our next basketball match."

"No good. You suck at basketball. Come up with something better, bro."

"I do not," Brennan protested. He considered, cocking his head. "How about this? I'll monitor the next two missions from the computer for you. Deal?"

"You're on."

"Jess," Shalimar tried to object.

Jesse stopped her. "You were telling me to get back there as well, Shal. Look out, I'm sitting up." He swung his legs over the edge, breathing deeply, pleased that this time his side only disagreed with his action instead of starting an all out war. He waited for the merry-go-round in his head to quit.

He must have taken too long, for Brennan piped up, "Hey, man, it's okay. We can call off the bet. You're not up to this. Lie back. I'll get the wheelchair."

Jesse held up a hand. "I'm not finished, bro. Chickening out? Afraid you'll lose?"

"I'm afraid you'll do some serious damage," Brennan retorted. "You know how much trouble we'll be in with Dr. Robinson if we let that happen?"

"No. How much?"

"She's an empath, bro. And a doctor. She'll hit you in spots you never knew you had."

"Not me, Brennan. You're the one who made the bet." Jesse stood, flailing around for something to hang onto.

Lexa obliged, catching his arm. "Sit down, Jesse. Before you fall down."

"Not a chance." Jesse concentrated on breathing. It worked before, and it would work again. Letting go of the chromatic he took a step. _So far, so good.__ Another step, balance. Yes, the doorframe is good to cling to for a moment, but won't get you much farther in your journey. Gotta let go, take another step. No, don't cough, that'll take you to your knees for sure._

He took a break in the hallway, leaning against the wall, catching his breath. The others crowded around him.

"It's okay, man," Brennan said anxiously. "You've made your point. You win. I concede."

"Not…yet…" Jesse gasped. "Half…way…there. Besides," and he flashed a grin, "you…hate…to lose."

_

* * *

Brennan dribbled by him, shooting a bolt of electricity to power jump the basketball into a slam dunk. _

_"Hey!" Jesse objected. "I thought we agreed. No powers."_

_"No," Brennan told him. "You agreed. I won."_

_Jesse rested his cheek against the hot rock face. The lava pit swirled below. "I should have remembered. You hate to lose."_

* * *

"I'll make an exception. You win, I lose." Brennan slid his hand under Jesse's shoulder. "Here. Lean on me." 

Jesse sighed. The dark edges of his vision were wavering dangerously, and his knees were in serious jeopardy of dumping him to the floor. He sagged into Brennan's waiting arms. "I think I'm losing this bet," he whispered.

"You can do it," Brennan encouraged anxiously. "I'll help. You can walk. Just put one foot in front of the other. I won't let you fall."

_

* * *

"You're wasting your time," Jesse said hoarsely. "It's the end." _

_"Not a chance, bro. This is only water, not hot lava. You can swim, I can swim. Just let the current bring you to me. I'll get you out of this."_

_"I can't."_

_"Yes, you can," Brennan encouraged. "Don't you remember? You phased the Helix. You've beaten back Genomex's goons more than a dozen times. You can do it again, bro. This is no different."_

_"Brennan, just let me go…"_

_"Jesse, I won't let you quit! Let go of the damn rock and get your ass over here!"_

_Jesse crumbled into the raging currents, releasing his hold on the boulder and tumbling head over heels in the water. It wasn't clear whether he had let go or been torn away by the force of the rushing river, but Brennan wasn't about to quibble. He barely managed to snag Jesse's shirt and dragged him into a fierce bear hug._

_"I've got you," he yelled. "Hang on!"_

* * *

"I've got you," Brennan soothed. "Hang on. Bed's right here." 

_Hanging on is going to be something of a problem, Bren. Fingers aren't working so good right now. Head is spinning, mouth is praying not to throw up all over you._ Jesse swallowed hard, and again. _And either Lexa has turned Shalimar and she invisible, or my vision is going out along with the rest of me. Where's the damn bed?_

Then he felt it, up against his legs. The only reason he didn't collapse onto the firm mattress was because Brennan slowly lowered him there, Lexa's hands guiding his head to the pillow and Shalimar grabbing for his feet. They had him down and settled before consciousness left all together—he hoped.

"Jess? You all right, buddy?"

"Yeah," he whispered, wishing his voice worked better. He felt too wiped even to cough.

"You had us worried there."

Damn. Must have passed out and never realized it. Lexa pulled the cool cloth from his forehead, and Jesse sighed. Definitely passed out. Never felt her put it there in the first place.

That was all right. He felt at peace with the world himself: Lexa hovering at the bed stand, Shalimar and Brennan perched on either side of his bed. Made it a little on the snug side, but that was all right. They were together. Shalimar slipped her hand around his.

Brennan leaned over. "Gotta get you well, bro. You've got a date with my Miata."

"What are you talking about, Brennan? I won the bet." It was hard to focus on the man's face.

"Did not. I practically carried you back to bed."

"Did I hit the floor?"

"Well… That was because I grabbed you first."

Jesse smiled, closing his eyes. "I won."


End file.
